Roller conveyors are used to transport goods carriers such as e.g. pallets. In the automobile industry they are often used to transfer vehicle bodies or parts of vehicle bodies between individual processing stations. The vehicle bodies are in said case fastened on so-called skids. This term is used for transport racks that have two mutually parallel skid runners. During the conveying operation the skid runners rest on rollers of the roller conveyor, which are disposed successively in conveying direction along two tracks. When the rollers are set in rotation, the skid with the vehicle body fastened thereon is fed in conveying direction, wherein it is sufficient to provide only some of the rollers with a rotary drive.
The roller conveyors of the initially described type, such as are currently known from the market, have only a single common voltage source for all of the driven rollers. If this voltage source fails or some other fault arises in the drive train, the article being conveyed comes to a standstill and has to be removed possibly laboriously by hand. In the event of failure of a single driven roller, transport is no longer possible over a considerable section corresponding to a roller conveyor module, this generally leading likewise to an interruption of conveying on the roller conveyor.
The present invention is provided to solve these and other problems.